Most weeks, we get the same handful of calls. Different homeowner, different neighborhood, different tree — but the same underlying problem, over and over. After enough years of this, you can start to predict which problem you're going to find before you pull into the driveway.
Here are the five we see most across Springfield, Nixa, Ozark, and the surrounding communities. If you've got a tree that doesn't look right, your odds are good that it's one of these.
1. Emerald Ash Borer (EAB)
If you have a white ash, green ash, or pumpkin ash in Greene County and you haven't already lost it, you're either lucky or you've been treating it. Emerald ash borer has been confirmed in our area, and the City of Springfield is running a five-year program to address the 380 ash trees on city property — treating some, removing others.
EAB is a small green metallic beetle whose larvae feed under the bark, eventually girdling the tree by cutting off the vascular tissue.
What it looks like:
- Thinning canopy, starting at the top and working down.
- D-shaped exit holes in the bark — about an eighth of an inch wide, distinctive shape.
- Vertical bark splits revealing serpentine galleries beneath.
- Epicormic shoots — clusters of new growth sprouting low on the trunk, the tree's last-ditch attempt to photosynthesize.
- Increased woodpecker activity (they're after the larvae).
What to do:
- If canopy dieback is under 30%: preventative trunk injection. Done every 1–3 years, it works. Costs roughly $10 per inch of trunk diameter per treatment.
- If canopy dieback is over 40%: the structural integrity is already compromised. Wood becomes brittle quickly after canopy death. Removal is usually the right call, and the longer you wait the more it costs because the tree gets harder to take down safely.
- If the tree is dead: remove it sooner rather than later. Dead ash drops limbs unpredictably and the trunk loses tensile strength within a year or two.
We see two or three new EAB-related calls a week during growing season. The treatment decision window is finite — if you've been putting it off, this season is the one.
2. Oak Wilt
Oak wilt is a fungal disease that's lethal to red-oak group species (red oak, pin oak, scarlet oak, black oak) and slower-acting but still serious on white-oak group species (white oak, post oak, bur oak, swamp white oak). It's spread by sap-feeding beetles in early spring and by root grafts between adjacent oaks.
What it looks like:
- Wilting and browning of leaves starting at the top of the canopy in early summer (May–July).
- Leaves often turn from the tip and outer edge inward, with a distinctive water-soaked discoloration along the leaf veins.
- Defoliation moves rapidly — a red oak with oak wilt can drop most of its leaves in a few weeks.
- White oaks may show a slower, branch-by-branch decline over several years.
What to do:
- The single most important prevention rule: do not prune oaks between April and July. Fresh wounds during the sap-feeding-beetle's active season attract the spore-carrying beetles. Most cases of oak wilt in residential settings trace back to a tree that was pruned, struck by a mower, or wounded during construction during the spring window.
- If you see early symptoms on an oak: get it looked at immediately. Trenching to sever root grafts to adjacent oaks can stop spread. Trunk injection of a systemic fungicide can sometimes save white oaks if caught very early.
- If the tree is in advanced decline: removal is usually unavoidable, and the wood needs to be handled carefully (chipped, kiln-dried, or covered) so the fungus doesn't continue to produce spores from the cut stumps and logs.
Oak wilt is one of the diseases that genuinely benefits from arborist diagnostics rather than guessing. Several other oak problems mimic the early symptoms; misdiagnosis costs you the tree.
3. Anthracnose
Anthracnose is a catch-all term for several related fungal diseases that affect shade trees in Missouri — most commonly sycamore anthracnose, dogwood anthracnose (Discula destructiva), and oak anthracnose on white oaks. We see it most after cool, wet springs.
What it looks like:
- Sycamore: brown, scorched-looking patches along the leaf veins. Leaves drop early in heavy infections. Twigs and small branches die back.
- Dogwood: tan-purple spots that spread into larger blotches. Leaves wither but remain attached. Severe infections can kill the tree over a few seasons.
- Oak: irregular brown blotches along veins. Generally not fatal — more cosmetic.
What to do:
- For most homeowners, anthracnose is a maintenance issue, not an emergency. Rake and remove fallen infected leaves in autumn — that reduces the spore load for the next year.
- Avoid overhead watering — the fungus needs leaf wetness to spread.
- Promote air circulation through corrective pruning to thin the canopy.
- For valuable dogwoods, fungicide treatment timed to leaf emergence and through wet spring weather can save the tree. But it's not a one-time fix; it's an annual program.
If your tree's anthracnose problems are getting worse year over year, the underlying issue is usually overall stress — soil compaction, poor drainage, drought, or root damage. The disease is opportunistic.
4. Bagworms
Bagworms aren't a disease — they're caterpillars — but they cause some of the most dramatic-looking tree damage we get called about. They feed on a wide range of trees but particularly favor eastern redcedar, junipers, arborvitae, and pines. In heavy infestations they can completely defoliate a conifer in a season, which on those species is often fatal.
What it looks like:
- Small, spindle-shaped "bags" hanging from branches — 1 to 2 inches long, covered in bits of the host tree's foliage.
- Foliage stripped from terminals; in heavy infestations, the tree can look mostly dead by late summer.
- Bags persist on the tree through winter (they overwinter as eggs inside the female's old bag).
What to do:
- Winter hand-picking is highly effective if you can reach the bags. Each bag removed in winter is up to 500 eggs that don't hatch in May.
- June spraying with Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) targets the young caterpillars before they build up enough foliage on their bags to protect themselves.
- By August, spray won't work — they're too well-armored. Wait for winter and hand-pick, or for next June.
For mature evergreens — especially established privacy hedges of arborvitae — bagworm control is a routine seasonal task. Calling once a year in June or July to assess and treat is far cheaper than losing the hedge.
5. Hypoxylon Canker
Hypoxylon is a fungal canker that affects oaks (especially post oak and red oak) and is almost always a sign that something else has stressed the tree first — drought, root damage, soil compaction, or other underlying weakness. Hypoxylon is opportunistic; it doesn't kill healthy trees.
What it looks like:
- Bark sloughing off in plates, exposing a smooth, silvery-tan fungal mat beneath that eventually darkens to nearly black.
- Affected areas often appear on one side of the trunk or one major scaffold limb at first.
- The tree shows general decline — thinning canopy, smaller leaves, branch dieback.
What to do:
- There is no effective treatment for Hypoxylon canker itself. Once it's established, the tree is structurally compromised in the affected areas.
- The work is risk management. A diagnostic visit determines whether the affected areas threaten structures, vehicles, or human-occupied space. Often the right call is targeted removal of the compromised limbs, or full removal if the trunk is involved.
- The underlying stress matters. If you can identify what stressed the tree in the first place — and if it's still present (compaction, drought-prone shallow soil, root damage) — addressing it can sometimes save the remaining healthy parts of the tree, or guide the species choice for the replacement.
Hypoxylon shows up most on Ozark-area post oaks after drought years, and on red oaks that survived construction-zone root damage with a 5–10 year delay.
When to call
If you can identify what you're seeing as one of the above and the problem looks mild — cosmetic anthracnose on a few sycamore leaves, a single bagworm bag on a juniper — you have time. Watch it through the season and address it next spring.
If you're seeing rapid decline, structural concerns, or any of the EAB / oak wilt / Hypoxylon symptoms above, get it looked at this week. Most of these problems are easier to address early than late, and several of them — EAB, oak wilt — have closing decision windows.
Call (417) 323-6775 or request an arborist visit. The first phone conversation is free; the site visit is honest; and if it's nothing, we'll tell you that too.